A BOY has become the youngest Briton to scale the Africa's highest peak, while raising more than £7,000 to help children born with facial deformities.

While his friends started their summer holidays playing football and cricket, Jack Rea, a pupil at Aysgarth School in Newton-le-Willow, near Bedale, North Yorkshire, reached the 5,895m summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, aged ten years and 20 days.

Jack's grandfather, Martin, said the schoolboy had been exhausted and elated about raising the funds for charity Operation Smile after reaching the summit with his father, Aaron, and guides who had tested Jack's fitness before the challenge.

Mr Rea said: "We are extremely proud of Jack, once he puts his mind to something, he goes and does it.

"He is just an average ten-year-old, but is very determined."

Aged seven, Jack became the youngest to climb the Yorkshire Three Peaks in a day, raising £2,000 for a soldier who was seriously injured in Afghanistan.

Last year, Jack completed a series of challenges - and became the youngest to complete the National Three Peaks - for the Household Calvary foundation and raised more £10,000.

Mr Rea added: "It is probably just a matter of time before Jack has climbed all the world's highest mountains."